BROCKTON, MA — He was a Haitian illegal immigrant. His federal parole had been terminated in June 2025. He never left. He stayed in Brockton — and Massachusetts renewed his commercial driver's license eight months after his federal permission to be in the country had ended.
Then, on Wednesday morning, according to authorities, he veered his tractor-trailer off the shoulder of I-81 in Pennsylvania and killed a 20-year veteran of the Pennsylvania State Police in a fiery crash.
Michael Bon, 33, is being held on $700,000 bail at Schuylkill County Prison in Pennsylvania. The trooper he is accused of killing was Michael Pahira Jr., 44, a 20-plus-year veteran of Troop L in Frackville — the 106th member of the Pennsylvania State Police to die in the line of duty.
The immigration timeline
DHS says Bon was admitted to the United States on July 2, 2024 at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport as a parolee under Biden-era humanitarian policy. In October 2024, he filed for Temporary Protected Status. The application was never granted.
In June 2025, USCIS terminated his parole — a formal notice went out on June 13. Bon did not leave. He settled in Brockton and stayed. Last week, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the federal government to end Temporary Protected Status for Haitian nationals — a policy shift that would have applied to Bon's case had his TPS application ever been approved.
ICE lodged an immigration detainer against Bon on Thursday — after the crash.
The Massachusetts CDL
Massachusetts's Registry of Motor Vehicles issued Bon a Non-Domiciled Commercial Driver's License in March 2025. He renewed it in February 2026 — eight months after his federal parole had been terminated.
The RMV is pointing the finger at the federal government.
"The Non-Domiciled Commercial Driver's Licenses program is a federal program," RMV spokesperson Amelia Aubourg said in a written statement to the Boston Herald. "This individual was ruled eligible based on the Trump administration database and allowed to drive by federal law and Trump administration policies."
Aubourg added that Bon "would not have been approved if he applied for renewal next year." The Trump administration implemented a new rule on March 16, 2026 directing states not to renew or issue new non-domiciled CDLs. Bon renewed his the month before.
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"The RMV relies on the federal SAVE database to determine whether someone is eligible to work in the United States," Aubourg said. "When Bon applied in 2025 and 2026, he was listed by the federal government as eligible."
The crash
Trooper Pahira was doing his job.
At approximately 7 a.m. Wednesday, July 1, he pulled over a tractor-trailer driven by Walter Alfredo Reinoso of Queens, New York, on I-81 south in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. Both vehicles were on the right-hand shoulder. Pahira walked up to Reinoso's cab for a routine commercial inspection.
Bon's tractor-trailer suddenly veered off the roadway and struck them.
The truck caught fire. Nearby construction workers who saw the smoke ran toward the wreckage. According to the court affidavit filed by investigators, the workers managed to pull Pahira out from beneath the burning tractor-trailer and drag him roughly 30 yards away.
He never regained consciousness.
Trooper Pahira was pronounced dead at 11:45 a.m. at Lehigh Valley Hospital–Schuylkill in Pottsville. Reinoso briefly lost consciousness on impact and provided authorities with dash-camera footage of the crash. Bon was transported to the hospital with undisclosed injuries.
Pahira, remembered by family as a "devoted" uncle, brother, and son, became the 106th member of the Pennsylvania State Police to die in the line of duty. Governor Josh Shapiro held a press conference later Wednesday. "Today is a horrible reminder of the service and the sacrifice they devote to this Commonwealth every single day," Shapiro said.
The Massachusetts context
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Michael Bon's federal parole was terminated in June 2025. He did not leave. Eight months later, the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles renewed his commercial driver's license anyway.
Governor Maura Healey (left) and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu. Both have publicly championed policies protecting migrants in Massachusetts. (Photos: Commonwealth of Massachusetts; City of Boston.)
The public defense of migrants has been a defining feature of the Massachusetts political leadership — from Governor Maura Healey and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu to the state's congressional delegation, Attorney General, and state legislature.
Massachusetts's political message on this front has been operationalized in state law. In 2022, the state legislature passed the Work and Family Mobility Act, a law allowing illegal immigrants to obtain a standard Massachusetts driver's license using foreign identification. Governor Charlie Baker vetoed it. The legislature overrode the veto. In November 2022, Massachusetts voters upheld the law at the ballot box in Question 4.
The Work and Family Mobility Act does not directly govern the federal Non-Domiciled CDL program under which Bon was licensed. But it is the clearest available signal of the political posture the state's elected officials have chosen to take on migrants — the same officials who now oversee the RMV that renewed Bon's commercial license eight months after his federal parole was terminated.
A 20-year veteran of the Pennsylvania State Police was killed Wednesday by a driver Massachusetts had licensed twice. That chain of custody runs through Boston as much as Washington.
Smoke rising from the fiery Wednesday-morning crash on I-81 south in Schuylkill County that killed Pennsylvania State Trooper Michael Pahira Jr. (Photo: Fox 56 / WOLF.)
The charges
Bon was arraigned Thursday morning on involuntary manslaughter, homicide by vehicle, aggravated assault by vehicle, reckless driving, and additional charges. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for July 16.
This is a developing story.
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